


We Both Know (what's been going on)

by Masian (salable_mystic)



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M, Rick-Rolling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 23:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9146122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salable_mystic/pseuds/Masian
Summary: It's never too late. Just sometimes too early.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chaosmanor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/gifts).



> written for chaosmanor as part of the 2016 livejournal viggorli_xmas Secret Santa.
> 
> Disclaimer: I obviously don’t own Viggo or Orlando, and there is no harm intended in any of this. Neither do I know or want to suggest anything about their personal life, this is all fantasy. The story’s just for fun, no money is being made.

 

The thing about Viggo and him, Orlando sometimes thinks, it that they just click together – things are usually easy between them, certain, unshakable, sure – not uncomplicated, necessarily, but even when they’re disagreeing and fighting they just both always seem to have the understanding that this, whatever the issue happens to be, will not be the thing that breaks them, not be the thing that makes them cease interacting, stop being … whatever they are these days. Friends with benefits initially, in New Zealand, then friends without benefits for years after, as Orlando was trying to establish himself and felt as if he ought to move on, fit in better, grow on his own (was freaking out a bit about his apparent bisexuality), but even then, when Orlando was trying to distance himself, and always since, they have been two people who love each other.

They haven’t been seeing much of each other – not in years, really, but not being in the same place doesn’t mean that they don’t interact. Sometimes they talk on the phone, sometimes Viggo writes letters (which Orlando tries to answer in kind, but really, he’s not the creative-on-paper-artist in their friendship), and, well, sometimes Viggo sends more-or-less comprehensible doodles without any accompanying explanations. Or a stack of polaroid photos. Or a collection of – apparently – interesting (to Viggo) rocks. Or … you never know, with Viggo.

(There was also the month when Viggo was entranced with the play of sunlight through the petals of flowers and seemingly all he could send were emails of snapshots of various flowers, usually blurry, almost always artistic.)

Orlando doesn’t even know how Viggo got his phone to do all that blurriness, he knows what kind of phone Viggo has and they’re kind of designed _not_ to take blurry photos – but hey, at least Viggo has finally joined the 21st century and is willing to use a smartphone. It has made intercontinental – or intracontinental – conversations – depending on where they both find themselves – much easier.

Viggo is even on WhatsApp these days, (finally!), which means that Orlando can now send him all kinds of media things, photos, links to articles, music files, random video clips of himself doing something or another, …, and, depending on how many photos of horses’ ears (or arses) Viggo has been sending in any given week he sometimes takes ruthless advantage of that. Really, as much as Orlando likes horses, there are only so many horses’ ears (or arses) a grown man needs to see over the course of a week. And Viggo, well, Viggo is _such_ a great person to rickroll, never mind that rickrolling is kinda last decade, Orlando loves it still … and Viggo, well, he falls for it again and again …  Orlando sometimes feels like he is covering Viggo’s delicate artist’s soul in dirt and dismay by doing it, though, which – not the best feeling. And then Viggo will send him a photo of him flipping the bird in return and Orlando will realize – yep, Viggo, not actually all _that_ terribly delicate. Which is something Orlando knows, really … but sometimes, when they’ve not been seeing each other in a long while, Orlando kind of forgets. Viggo becomes that ethereal companion of his virtual world, then, always there, always interesting – but equally intangible and incorporeal. More fragile than the real human behind the WhatApp messages. Easier to both lose track of and to take for granted, all at the same time.

The solution to that dilemma is clearly to see each other more often, to connect in person, to actually talk about things and issues and emotions and not just to hope that digital photos and snaps will convey and indefinitely nurture all that lies between them – which is why Orlando is currently in Idaho, all sneaky sneaky on the quiet like, with the media so far none the wiser, to spend a week hanging out with Viggo. It’s something that they’ve been mentioning for so long, in bits and pieces, in a wouldn’t-it-be-nice-if and I-wish-I-could and how-about-we-sometime and a miss-you-want-to-see-you kind of way, that it suddenly being a thing that is actually happening feels – strange. Exciting, slightly terrifying, exhilarating – strange.

It’s been so long – too long – and so much has been happening in both their lives since they last physically shared the same private space, could talk face to face with no-one else around, that there’s so much potentiality in the air that Orlando, when he thinks about it, finds it a little hard to breathe.

He’s free now – freer than he has been in years, anyway, if not quite as free as he was back in New Zealand – not that he’d change that for the world – and he’s grown, is surer of himself, of who he is and isn’t, who he can be, will be, is willing to be – how far he is willing to bend, to hide, to conform – and how far is too far, where he will draw the line, not matter what it does to his future career.

The thing he has realized is this: Viggo is firmly within all those hypothetical lines that he is drawing in his mind, and not having Viggo – as a friend, or maybe, hopefully, finally, as more, so much more – is firmly outside them – and it’s taken him so long – too long – more than a _decade_ , _god_ what took him so long – to realize all this – about himself, about the world, about _them_. But at least he knows now, right?

And surely he isn’t too late?

Or, even if he is, if they can’t be more than they are, surely they won’t be … less?

The thing is, the thing is – he keeps reminding himself – things between him and Viggo are both easy and certain, no matter the finer details, and so he can be sure that even if this is not something Viggo wants that it’ll nevertheless be a bit of personal growth for Orlando that Viggo will be able to appreciate, if only in theory, and that they will remain friends anyway.

Right?

He’ll have to trust that this will be another one of those things that will not, not, _not,_ break them. He’s not going to mess this up. This – this thing between him and Viggo. This potential. This friendship. The deepest, most treasured, most beautiful relationship with an adult that he’s ever had.

Right?

Right.

So there’s really no reason to be nervous, no reason at all. Orlando will get to Viggo’s farm, be greeted, unpack, have dinner, settle in with a glass of wine, and then he’ll take a deep breath and screw up his courage and talk, explain, pace nervously while doing so, gesturing too widely and speaking too quickly and getting tangled up in run-on sentences, and Viggo will sit, quiet and attentive, and listen and let Orlando rattle on, talk himself out, shed his nerves and arrive at certainty and stillness, his thoughts and feelings laid bare, the options there for Viggo to choose from. And Viggo will … well, it’ll be up to Viggo then, won’t it? Friends or more than friends, but always friends. It’ll be fine. _Fine_. There’s no reason to be nervous.

Really.

No reason.

At all.

None.

So there’s no reason for sweaty hands and a sudden, crippling, attack of nerves as Orlando pulls his rental car (the paparazzi know his car, darn them, so when he wants to be incognito he has to rent one and hope the rental agent is either discrete or uninformed or face blind or something) into the long driveway that leads to Viggo’s farm in Idaho.

No reason.

Nor is there a reason to be nervous when he’s finally parking in front of Viggo’s house, and the man himself is there to meet him, looking all wind-blown and delicious in tight jeans, cowboy boots and, of all things, a plaid shirt.

Or even when they’re hugging – finally touching again – too long too tight so so so good finally finally _finally_ – and all his careful plans of when best to lay this all on Viggo for a hopefully positive reply leave his mind entirely and he ends up murmuring his realizations, his desires, his hopes, his dreams and his confessions against the crook of Viggo’s neck, into his tousled hair, his ear, smelling earth and aftershave and _Viggo_ and never never _never_ letting go.

And, well, being nervous when Viggo leans back a little, eyes wide and slightly damp and smile so wide and happy and cheerful, muttering “Fuckin’ finally!” – “Worth the wait, though” – and “Love you too” in between peppering kisses to Orlando’s face would just be silly.

And then, well, _then_ Orlando is busy being pressed back against the side of his car and being kissed within an inch of his life, and he’s many things in that moment, but nervous certainly isn’t one.

Happy, though, happy is.

He is just as blissfully happy when Viggo, some indeterminate time later leans back a little to breathe – what is time, anyway, who needs it, what does it matter, breathing is optional, kiss me again, now – and starts humming “Never Gonna Give You Up” against his mouth. Orlando can appreciate the sentiment – most heartily reciprocates the sentiment – and, well, it’s not as if he doesn’t deserve it. (And hey, he has taught Viggo how to rickroll people. _Score_!)

 

 

The End


End file.
